Sunday, September 18, 2011

"I Love You Americans"

Yesterday was another hot day, and so Goober & I ducked into the Burger King for a cool drink and some baby food after exploring a little North for a bit. The drink was for her, of course. ;) While there, an employee who looked to be about 17 or so kept coming over to us and playing with Goober and smiling at her. He even brought over a high chair when he saw that I was feeding her the applesauce while on my lap. He was sweet. First he asked if we were German, then if we were from America.

"Yes, we're American."

"Oh! I love you Americans!"

He then proceeded to show me his ankle tattoo of a marble column-like cross with an American flag draped over it. WOW. So much love for a country he may or may not have ever been to.

And yet, just down the street I saw a small scooter accident happen. A woman with a bunch of groceries on the back of a scooter collided with another woman walking along the street with her small son. The scooter woman was on the ground, scooter halfway on top of her, moaning. The other woman was just standing there, rubbing her ankle while her son just watched. Nobody did anything. Nobody rushed over to help either of these women, they just stared. Of course, had I been without Goober strapped to my chest I would've gone over and helped the woman up, or at least done something. If this was in the States, at least all 15 witnesses would have called 911 by now or a swarm of people would be assisting the victims. It's crazy. The difference in culture and expectations.

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Last Friday night we had a Goober-free evening with some other "grown-ups." Goob stayed with Trav's coworkers' ayi (like a nanny/housekeeper) for a couple hours while the rest of us went for some all-you-can-eat pizza and beer at a hotel. Oh man. It's the first time I've truly been away from Goob for more than 20 minutes while here and it felt pretty good. And, I wasn't worried at all as Goober even waved bye-bye to me as she was crawling around with the ayi and the two other little girls...she was excited to be playing with new toys and taking in new sights. Later, Mom.

After having an endless glass of Tiger beer (the waiters never let the glasses be emptied, so we didn't really know how much we drank!) and some pretty decent pizza in an amazingly gorgeous hotel, Trav, two of his coworkers and I all went up to the observation deck of the World Financial Center. 474 meters above ground (1555 feet!). OH EM GEE. It was nuts! The building itself is pretty spectacular (it kind of looks like a bottle opener, don't you think?) but the views from that height were breathtaking. Even at night, it was quite the sight. The tower next door, Jin Mao, which is 421 meters seemed dwarfed by this thing. Really felt on top of the world.

It's hard to believe we've been in Shanghai for over two weeks now. Time is flying, which is nice. Hope everyone has a fantastic rest of the weekend! Good luck, You Go Girls' Team Will Run for Ice Cream! Wish I could be there!